Ballad of The Honeybadger
by lostlikeme
Summary: Craig can work with this. Dates and anniversaries and vapid sentimentality are the bane of his existence, but this, even Craig can do. Even Craig can teach someone how to fuck. Probably. Warning for coercion.


Craig's nostrils flare and twin streams of smoke are swept away by the rattling ceiling fan. The blades spin clockwise; Craig tracks the motion momentarily before closing his eyes. Silence, save for the steady clink of the metal chain against the light bulb. Another exhale, and Craig considers the question. Two more and Craig considers answering. The cigarette becomes just a smear of ash on his hobbled bedside table by the time he decides to speak.

"It depends on your definition of a lot."

The sheets shift and Craig doesn't have to open his eyes to see Tweek's face, the way he chews on his bottom lip like a lifesaver.

"Enough for at least, I don't know-" Tweek sputters. "Maybe-nghn-shit, like, a week?"

It's easy to remember that same mouth-with less teeth-crunching a pencil eraser nervously at the desk across from him. Five year old Craig blinks and turns away, disinterested. The bed creaks as Craig shifts his weight onto his forearms. He resists the urge to sigh as he reaches for his backpack. Not much has changed between them since that first day in Kindergarten.

Except, for maybe, the price tag. "Sixty three, but I'll cut you even," Craig tells him.

"Jesus christ."

To an outsider, the inside of Craig's backpack would make him look less like a drug dealer and more like a fat camp snack smuggler. (What's the difference?) The Pringles container houses about a fourth of his marijuana supply at any given point in time. A decoy can of Pepsi lined with foil is where the dankest of his kush lives. Pills, Craig keeps in a napkin lined Starbucks cup, just for irony's sake. There's a marble notebook in there too, for good measure. Craig pops a starburst in his mouth and reaches for his cigarettes.

Craig nudges him and Tweek stops pulling his hair out for just long enough to stare at Craig's fingers.

"It's a fucking starburst," Craig says. "Eat it."

After a moment's hesitation Tweek fumbles with the wrapping. Craig veers his eyes away so he doesn't have to watch him tear at the taffy corner by corner, nibbling like a mouse.

"Craig, I just-shit-I'm sorry," Tweek says after swallowing. "I don't have that kind of money!"

The last sentence comes out like a trainwreck. Craig steels himself for the pathetic display he knows will follow.

"Do you think, that, uh, maybe you could help me out and-"

Craig rolls his eyes and unfolds another starburst. He and Tweek may be friends, but-

"No."

-they aren't all that close. Craig can't recall the last time they reconvened for anything more than an exchange of goods and services. Less of a friendship and more of a series of illegal transactions.

"Shit, shit. Please! Finals are coming up and-nghn-I need them dude."

It's always been like this. Craig sighs. "What am I going to get out of this?"

Tweek struggles to formulate a response. "I could, fuck! I don't know, maybe, like-do your chores or something!"

"No."

Not even Butters is that truly naive, and Craig knows it isn't for lack of experience. He's the only drug dealer in a high school the size of a quarter; it takes longer for Craig to take a piss than it does for gossip to reach him. When Bebe Stevens had a nipslip first period, Craig had a picture halfway through second like the shit happened live on the MTV. He knows Tweek has fooled around with his fair share of girls, but it doesn't show, especially not now.

Tweek swallows and Craig flicks his eyes back to the ceiling. Tweek opens his mouth to speak but Craig cuts him off.

"Let me fuck you," he says casually.

It's been awhile since Craig has had a good fuck, and he knows if he doesn't dip his stick soon he's going to end up on the wrong end up a McCormick blowjob. It takes a long time for Tweek to reply, long enough that Craig has almost forgotten the context of the conversation. The ceiling texture blurs between his eyes as the smoke fogs over. This is only his second cigarette, right?

"What about-shit! I don't know! Diseases, and-"

Tweek skips the sexual identity crisis and Craig feels like maybe he should have been paying more attention. He doubts Tweek has ever been with another dude, but in South Park it pays to leave room for surprises.

"We can use a condom," Craig assures him.

There's a strip of them in Craig's bedside table, matte black and pre-lubricated. There might even be a few other colors in there. They're from the free clinic, maybe.

"Yeah but-they're only, like, ninety-nine percent effective and they can pop and tear and get lost inside you-"

The thought of losing a condom inside his friend is as laughable as it is implausible. Craig wants to tell him he doesn't have anything, to imply that he is somehow _safe_ , but instead he says:

"I've never done it without a condom."

Ultimately, it feels like a confession. It shouldnt. This is definitely just sex. No strings attached, no feelings allowed, nothing but raging hormones and skin on skin sex. Tweek rakes his teeth over his bottom lip until it flushes red. Craig almost doesn't hear when Tweek speaks.

"I've never, uh, needed one, so..." Tweek drops his hand halfway to the drawer.

"Not even with Bebe?"

Tweek's face spreads scarlet. "No!" he says too quickly. "We never really got that far…" his voice fades into the fan.

Craig can work with this. Dates and anniversaries and vapid sentimentality are the bane of his existence, but this, even Craig can do. Even Craig can teach someone how to fuck. Probably. His own first time was unremarkable. Somewhere between second base and sophomore year Craig figures he lost it with someone, somewhere. Behind the bleachers or with Bebe Stevens, maybe.

Their eyes cross paths during a simultaneous glance at Craig's bedsider drawer, and just like that, they're going to fuck.

"Okay," Tweek mutters, fidgeting.

They remove their shirts in unison. Tweek gets the gist, at least. There isn't a lot of staring or blushing, just Tweek's fingers trembling as he folds his clothes and Craig's utter nonchalance following languidly behind him. Craig observes Tweek behind a guarded look and gets an eyefull for his effort: pale skin stretched taut like canvas over bone. Undressed, Tweek looks hardly different than he does in the locker room. Craig has watched the scars on his arms increase with each year, noting the way bruises pile up like layered blotches of blue and yellow watercolor.

Tweek lurches across the bed to kiss him, fingers tangled at Craig's shoulders. His foot snags in the sheet and the sound of fabric tearing fills the room. Tweek shudders, hands pressed against his ears. It's the least attractive thing anyone has ever done to him in his own bed (aside from the time Clyde got wasted and thought it was a urinal.)

"Shit, shit, I'm sorry dude!"

The klutzy blond thing must really be doing it for him, Craig figures, as he kisses him. Tweek's mouth is small, nearly affectionate in its fervor and pink as a puppy's nose, chewed up before Craig even bothers using his teeth. Even in the warmer months, Tweek manages to carry a raw, wind-chapped look to his face: lips cracked as an impacted windshield.

"Take off your pants," Craig tells him as he reaches to unzip his own.

Tweek shivers and his eyelashes flutter as he exhales. He probably doesn't want to do this, but this doesn't make Craig a rapist. This is a deal. Fair trade. If anything, it makes Craig a...broker? Sex-broker isn't the most arousing reality to consider, but still Craig considers it and still his erection remains unfazed.

Maybe it's wrong to manipulate an addict this way, and maybe Craig should give a shit and maybe Craig's dick should give a shit, and maybe they should both show a modicum of morality, but here he is with an unflagged ship and a sympathy bucket bone dry. Craig can't imagine wanting something so much it destroys him.

"Spread your legs," Craig orders.

The taste of his skin is fresh on Craig's tongue, and the way his voice pitches when he sucks at his neck is unfamiliar and exciting. Without meaning to, Craig imagines that pale skin marred by a neat row of burns; ash and tobacco scorched into perfect circles across his wrist. Sweat slides against his skin when their thighs brush. Craig wants to fuck him now, just like this: entirely sober with nothing but skill to save him.

Craig's hand halts around the hem of Tweek's underwear when he flinches. "I'm too scared," Tweek says after a particularly violent spasm.

Unfazed, Craig shrugs off his underwear in a final act of solidarity. It only seems to escalate the situation. Tweek inches backward on the bed, shaking his head.

"No way no way no way," Tweek says quickly. "No way dude, shit. It's-it's-"

"Huge?" Craig supplies behind a barely hidden smile.

Tweek huffs, trembling, but doesn't lose confidence. "No f-fucking way," he stutters. "Never-nevermind, I'll die," he says resolutely.

There's something to be said about how Tweek is jacked up enough to think that Craig will literally kill him with his dick, but Craig is too busy trying to suck him off through the fabric of his underwear to say anything.

It's hard to place what specifically about Tweek trips Craig's trigger. The blond hair helps (he's always liked blondes) but Tweek is no Ken doll. His eyelashes are so light they only exist when the light flickers through the blinds at just the right angle, and he's thin enough that his stomach is nearly concave, profile arched like a bow. Fuck, it can't be the twitch that does it. The way he vibrates like a cellphone at worst and trembles like a three pound chihuahua at best.

"S-stop," Tweek stutters. "If you keep-I'm gonna-"

Craig pulls his mouth away from the front of Tweek's underwear, nonplussed. His own dick is rigid against his thigh. Tweek pants, trying to find his focus. When Craig settles on top of him, their hips lined together, Tweek dissolves into fear.

"Craig," he manages to rasp.

Craig presses down in response, grinding his cock against the wet spot on Tweek's underwear. With only a thin layer of cotton between their skin, Craig can feel the shape of Tweek's warm prick beneath his own, straining for friction.

Tweek stutters when Craig's dick slips between his legs, pressing up against his balls from behind. Another jolt wrecks him-fear or arousal-it's hard to tell.

"Shit, shit! Don't! I can't-"

"Shut up," Craig says, pulling Tweek's briefs the rest of the way down. "I'm gonna ride you,"

Somehow, he looks even more vulnerable naked. He shoves his hands between his legs like his dick is anything Craig hasn't seen before, and his lips quirk. Craig traces the hidden parts with his hands: there's acne on his shoulder blades and a little curve at the end of his tail bone. Leaning back, he can't help but stare at how Tweek is wrapped around himself, knuckles red and fingernails worse: gnawed to the quick with torn, bloody cuticles and scratches like violent cross-hatching.

Craig pulls Tweek away by the wrists, slow and steady until he can get a good look. Tweek's prick is flushed against his stomach, moving in time with his shallow breathing. Tightening his fist in the torn sheets, Craig ignores the way his own cock twitches with renewed interest. He jerks Tweek a few times, perfunctory, before grinding his ass back down.

"Shit, don't! I've never-I don't know how to-" Tweek gestures wildly as Craig hovers above his dick, face impassive as he waits for Tweek to center himself.

"Shut up," Craig says again. "They're going to hear you."

Tweek's eyes widen; pupils the size of pinheads. Craig doubts his parents will hear them, if they're even home at all. He figures they care as much about his sex life as he does theirs. He quiets Tweek with his free hand anyway, jerking him faster as he presses two fingers into his mouth.

The fan stutters above them when Tweek gags, knocking dust into streams of sunlight as Craig shoves his fingers down Tweek's throat. It's almost romantic. Tweek sputters when Craig pulls his hand away to prepare himself.

"Shit, dude-you can't be serious."

Craig huffs. This isn't even the first time today he's shoved something up his asshole.

"What did you think we were going to do? Jerk each other off?"

The prospect of anal sex seems to terrify Tweek from either angle. So far, every position sans missionary has been deemed "hazardous," and Tweek insists that even missionary position is "bad for your back." Tweek sputters when Craig squeezes their cocks together, but manages to speak even through the slow stroking. He deserves an award for perseverance, at least.

"I don't know man, I've just like-I've never even done it with a girl before and now, shit, you're like-all thirsty for my dick and-"

Craig sinks down and Tweek squeaks, covers his mouth, and scrunches his eyes closed. It isn't bad at all when he's well prepared like this, opens himself slick and slow with an unwavering erection bobbing between his legs. It's easy to adjust too, without the rush or desperation. Tweek is still as an iron-wrought statue below him, frozen in time as the moments pass around them.

"You can breathe without shattering my asshole, you know."

Tweek struggles to respond, caught between a giggle and a gasp. "You're not-" Craig lifts his legs a little and drops back down. It's a workout in itself. Tweek's voice falters. "You're not wearing a condom," he says at last.

Craig shrugs and Tweek swears. "Whatever," Craig figures. Craig is clean and Tweek is a virgin. It doesn't even bother Craig that he has to do all the work.

"But shit, what about when I-" Tweek gestures wildly, face red.

Craig tilts his head, makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat, and casts his eyes back to the ceiling.

"Just pull out."

With Tweek on the bottom, it's easy to set the pace: fast and slow, brutal and agonizing. Craig likes to keep Tweek guessing, likes to give himself time to break and relax the taut muscles in his thighs. For a while, it's fine that they're fucking like this-nearly moderate with Tweek an unhelpful mess below him. Pausing for a breather, Craig contracts his muscles, pleased by the way Tweek's dick jerks inside him in response. Before now, sex and symbiosis were dichotomous; parallel lines that never touched.

Craig drops his weight, bearing down until Tweek's pubes brush his ass.

"Fuck," Tweek says behind the fist he's stuffed in his mouth.

For a little while, things are fluid. Craig doesn't think about the cigarette he'll smoke after, or the mess he'll be left with when Tweek leaves, and for a little while, Craig doesn't remember that after he blows his load he'll owe his supplier $63, and his closest acquaintance a small bottle of pills. Craig wonders if the semantics really matter, if it makes a difference whether sex is part of a bartering system, or a romantic one.

The moment Craig paws at his chest Tweek freezes back up. Craig nips at his throat, but Tweek looks away, squirming. His eyes shift and he moves to chew his lips again but Craig stops him with a word:

"Don't."

Craig seals their mouths, leaving Tweek breathless from the force of the kiss, biting at chapped lips until he opens up, pliant. Hands back to Tweek's chest, Craig sucks on his tongue, swallowing desperation as Tweek writhes beneath him.

"What?" Craig asks flatly. Tweek pushes at his hands, the action inefectual; marred by his ever present tremor. "You don't like it?" Craig asks, rubbing his thumbs across Tweek's nipples.

"Shit! Nghn-I, I don't know, man, it's weird and-" he takes a deep breath. "It's not like I'm, uh, a-nghn-a girl."

"I noticed," Craig says, undeterred.

The next time Craig reaches for Tweek's chest it's expertly timed with a roll of his hips. Tweek gasps, overstimulated, as Craig leans down to graze his teeth against his throat. When Tweek moans his adam's apple bobs and Craig can feel the vibrations in his mouth. He traces the curve of his ear with his tongue.

"Still scared?"

Tweek manages a vehement head shake to express his disagreement, and it's enough to quell the ruckus in his brain. Almost as good as a cigarette, probably.

Craig gets down to business after that: playing Tweek's cock like a bouncehouse as he casually strokes his own. He's had enough joyrides and enough of a dick to know exactly how to make Tweek blow his load. Eyebrows knit, Tweek's mouth falls open as he tries to reciprocate. Tweek pivots, hip bones scraping as their stomachs touch. Craig deflates and drops his weight, rocking back against the cock inside him until the headboard knocks the wall.

Tweek freezes like a stuck stopwatch, rigid with hypervigilance, eyes trained on the space where the bed frame meets the wall.

"Come on," Craig urges him, "Fuck me."

Craig bears down to prove a point, feeling himself stretch to accommodate the cock inside him. Tweek barely manages a few ill-timed thrusts of his own, a futile attempt for more friction. Chest to chest, Craig tightens his thighs for a better grip, movements shallow and quick, sharpening, piqued. Tweek makes noises like he's dying but he likes it.

"Shit dude, fuck, I'm gonna-nghn-if you don't stopfck-"

This seems to be a major stressor for Tweek, and even with his tongue sucked into Craig's mouth he tries to warn him about it. Frustrated, Craig pulls away to issue another command.

"Just bust already."

The thought of cum inside him doesn't exactly appeal to Craig's more hygienic sensibilities, but he doesn't have enough time between now and an orgasm to muster up a fuck to give. Tweek covers his face and muffles his cry when he does it, twitching tenfold behind overwhelmed tears as his balls empty and Craig fills up.

Moments pass in silence save for shallow breathing, but Craig doesn't pull off, even when Tweek starts to go soft inside him. Instead Craig picks up speed as he strokes himself off, tightening his muscles around Tweek until he makes a startled, strangled noise. Even as a useless, nerve-wracked mess, Tweek turns him on. It doesn't take much longer for Craig to reach his limit.

"Give me a hand," Craig grits through his teeth.

Tweek takes orders well, albeit nervously, so Craig snatches his hand and brings it to his dick, covering it with his own. It feels better than it should-the contrast between Tweek's clammy, feverish palm pressed against the heated skin of his cock. The first stroke sends a jolt from his heel to the arch of his spine, and the second has Craig gripping Tweek's wrist like he's going to snap it.

"Did I-"

Craig shakes his head, nudging his hips forward until his cock is sliding through Tweek's fist. The sight is beyond pornographic.

"Faster," Craig wants to say, but he's lost the words.

Instead, Craig grabs his hand and accelerates the pace, gasping every time Tweek squeezes a little too hard. His grip is a little awkward, his hand isn't moving fast enough, and somehow, in the back of his mind, Craig knows Tweek isn't a very good fuck. Fortunately, his orgasm would beg to differ.

Sweat and precum slick the space between his dick and Tweek's hand, and when his trembling, cuticle torn fingertips reach the head of his cock, Craig's expectations collapse in on themselves like a broken dam. His hips rise a few inches on autopilot when he comes, spunk shot as well-aimed as a winning game of darts.

Post-coital afterglow, Craig feels a little nauseous. This isn't anything like he said it would be, and it definitely isn't like fucking. Less like a one night stand and more like a-whatever the fuck the opposite of a one night stand is. A relationship, his brain supplies sickly. He steadfastly refuses to acknowledge it.

Why can't Craig just fuck him and feed him ritalin and cheerios afterward like a songbird with clipped wings. Does it have to mean anything more than that? Smoke spirals like miniature tornadoes above them. Craig wonders if he should put it out and turn off the fan. With the blackout blinds, his room is cloaked in the dim glow from the lamp on his desk.

"Hey, uh, dude?" Tweek sounds too at ease, too at home.

Craig doesn't say anything, doesn't really have anything to say, so all he offers in acknowledgement is a sidelong glance. For Tweek, it must be enough.

"Why do you smoke?" he asks, and Craig is so impressed by the fluidity and lack of stuttering that he genuinely considers it before answering.

"Kills me faster," he says truthfully.

Tweek doesn't say anything after that and Craig finds solace in the silence. Craig stares at the little vial on his bedside table, imagines counting the pills and handing it to Tweek, full. The world, Craig figures, has as much good as it does bad, and at the end of the day the two probably cancel each other out like opposing integers and leave nothing but a flat baseline and a big, fat zero.

Halfway into a stupor, Tweek's body jerks, freezes, and relaxes beside him. Craig turns to face him, watches his chest rise, listens to his breathing regulate. Even in his sleep, Tweek's fingers twitch, tickling the hair on Craig's arms until he shifts away. Six inches seems like more space when it's between them.

Reconsidering, Craig reaches across the space until he can curl his fingers around Tweek's, knuckles brushing his palm. Tweek hasn't slept in Craig's bed since the fifth grade when he woke Craig up at three am to check for underpants gnomes. Somehow, it doesn't feel that different.


End file.
